Thanks to everybody who took part in last week's Fun Online Poll, results as follows:
What would you have done in David Cameron's position?
Exercised your veto - 78%
Nodded through the proposed EU Treaty changes - 3%
Other, please specify - 19%
Good, we are all pretty much agreed on that one.
The irony is that the main reason why Cameron refused to co-operate was because he and his banker mates don't want to have a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT). Now, the FTT is just about the stupidest kind of tax you can invent (it's like Stamp Duty), it will either distort the way all these payments are currently processed or just not raise very money money (to be collected by persons unknown and spent on purposes unknown), and the FTT will certainly not dampen down credit and land price bubbles or discourage government deficit spending, which are the things which got us into this mess.
I just wonder, do the Eurocrats really not know this? Why did they give Cameron such a good excuse for refusing to play ball? And why is everybody making such a big fuss about some proposed Treaty changes not being nodded straight through? Didn't we have a new-ish Treaty/constitution a couple of years ago? Etc etc. The whole thing is a mystery to me, but that's all the more reason to stay out.
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Counting Bears
1 hour ago
6 comments:
"The irony is that the main reason why Cameron refused to co-operate was because he and his banker mates don't want to have a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT)."
Really? I thought the reason for making that request is that he knew it would be refused. Had Merkozy accepted it, he would have had to sign up, reopen the Lisbon treaty, and trigger a referendum in this country.
Something he really doesn't want.
(Though my opinion is that a referendum would ultimately return a "stay in the EU" since if the first returned a "leave the EU" result, they'd simply keep holding them until we got a "stay in the EU" result. Remember Ireland?)
Why did they give Cameron the excuse ?
Simple ,they are really that stupid.
Hence the disaster they have created.
PJH, but he made a perfectly reasonable request.
Merkozy could then just have said "OK, we'll not bother with the FTT and we'll press ahead with a new 'stability pact' in the Euro-zone (a bit like the one we always had, but we'll enforce it this time, honest)" and Cam could then have said "Fine, these Treaty amendments only affect Euro-zone countries, ergo no 'transfer of powers from London to Brussels, ergo no referendum needed." and all would have been well on the EU gravy train'.
Anon, that's my opinion too, FWIW.
Sarcozy needed a headline to cover his U turn. Cameron's veto provided it.
Also the FTT as proposed will not raise money for individual countries but for the EU. So would have substantially increased the UK's per capita net contribution to Brussels if it had gone ahead.
Perhaps, now that France and Germany have at last, after so many centuries, got together to rule Europe instead of trying to do it on their own, they don't want the British interfering.
Good post on the FTT. A stroke of luck our daft leaders dont get it.
As with Robin Hood the aim of the tax's supporters is to punish the biggest robbers of wealth and redistribute that robbery to the less wealthy. "Its not fair". Aka "Wealth Jealousy".
Rather than abolish the robbery at the root, supporters do not question the original sin, but just demand we all get a little bit of the theft.
This is in the nature of The Matrix, where we can all rob each other and things will work out fine.
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